Cisco, meanwhile, confirmed long running rumors of its investment in SDN startup Insiemi. "About a year ago we began to see an opportunity in a market around programmability and application-aware networks and networks aware of applications," CEO John Chambers (pictured) said in April. "That will come out in multiple forms."

In November, Brocade acquired startup Vyatta, which has an open source approach to SDN, in an all-cash transaction aimed at bolstering its own investments in Ethernet fabrics and SDN.